CIO for Beginners

[Robo Guru]

There are a few different types of Inputs and Outputs in a Motoman... the easiest way I can explain it is like this:

Specific I/O - This is the bits you use for system related functions. ie. Specific inputs will turn on things such as servo power, set to play mode, etc... Specific outputs will give you the status of your robot. ie. In teach, in remote, etc...

Universal I/O - This is the I/O that you access from your robot jobs.  For instance, in a program you would turn on a solenoid by using the command DOUT #1 ON

External I/O - This is where you wire everything in on the green terminal blocks inside the robot controller. 

The robot's CIO is where all the magic happens!

The robot's CIO ladder (which is essentially a PLC) maps the various bits together.  Everything ultimatley starts off as an external input.  An external input does abosolutley nothing until you map it somewhere.  So, you would map an external input over to a universal input if you wanted to see that status of an input in your robot job.  Likewise you would map an external input to a specific input if you wanted to turn servo power on.

The ladder has 2 sections to it.  The system section and the user section.  We can only edit the user section as the system section is reserved for Yaskawa.  The user section is really all you need access to.  It will allow you to map all your I/O accordingly.

I invite other forum members to post their comments about the CIO to this topic as well. 

Somar, please make this a sticky!  Thanks!

RoboGuru

[tony gast]

A couple of flow charts for the signals.....

[Fabian Munoz]

Hi all:
I made this post sticky and I locked it, if somebody wants to add anything, e-mail me

Thanks to Robo Guru and tony gast.